“Powered by Nokia” Battery Pro+ app is a free and elegant tool worth checking out

In case you needed another battery app for your Windows Phone 8 device, Battery Pro+, a new and free app will get the job done. What’s real interesting about this sharply designed utility is that it is evidently sponsored by Nokia (though not exclusive to their Lumias).

Battery Pro+ is actually listed under Wunderman Polska, a third party developer agency that evidently Nokia Poland has hired to make this app and a few other utilities, including a leveler, flashlight and stopwatch. The main screen though proudly boasts “Powered by Nokia” and under the About screen, you can find an email with an @nokia-services.pl address and a “prepared by Nokia” entry.

So how is Battery Pro+? For free, it’s not too bad. It boasts the deep blue color associated with Nokia and their traditional design for utility apps. While it doesn’t vaunt a ton of features, it does the basics right.

Features include

Check the battery status in percentage

Check the hourly power usage

Check the time left for the battery to discharge

Range of battery usage (in the last 48h)

The Live Tile, updated every 30 minutes (OS limitation) looks clean and sharp like the main app itself and the info presented appears to be accurate. You also have shortcuts to settings for cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for easy toggling. Other than that, there’s not too much else to say about it.

You can pick up Battery Pro+ by Nokia here in the Store. All Windows Phone 8 devices (incl. 512MB). Free.

So other people don't have this issue?
I did think of doing that, but didn't want to loose all my apps and settings. I guess i could just flash gdr2 & have fresh phone and latest update... But loosing my settings and having to reinstall my apps has delayed me.

Some poeple have issues, but it isn't normal behavior. All your settings and app list is back up and can be restored after you sign in to your MS account. Any saved game or app data will be lost though, unless they are cloud-based.

what are you talking about? This is not much great? its an awesome app, its replacing my current 'battery status' app on top of my home screen. I tell you why, this is a nice clean UI with a single screen that gives all the info you need including a Graph, plus quick access to WiFi, Cellular and Bluetooth settings right there. I always wanted this (quick access to Wifi/Cellular settings...as is available on all Android phones), but lazy Microsoft won't give it to us yet.
Only feature missing is Lockscreen support, hope they'll add it in future release.. check out the other apps from the same developer, lot of free useful apps too.

Although technically true, I imagine the battery power used to check the battery life every 30mins is pretty minimal and not something you would ever notice.
Plus I could argue having a battery app display a percentage on the lock screen means I can check how much battery is remaining far quicker. Thus saving battery power.

Now, if only they could add functionality that lets the battery tiles update more frequently. Knowing your percentage is almost useless when it only updates every 30 minutes. You can literally lose 10% in 15 minutes if you're playing a game or something.

If my tiles even updated every 30 minutes I wouldn't mind. I know playing games will kill the battery, so i'm not so bothered by the 30 minute limitation, I know it'll be down. I'd just like to see the tile update without me having to go into the app.

So true. I wonder what th OS will look like without their input.
I don't know why it's difficult for MS to include basic features, darn basic features in more frequent updates. They are a software giant for f*ck sakes and the OEMs take care of the hardware.

Tell me MS, why is it so difficult, plus you even lock down Api's preventing those who can and are WILLING to improve the OS from doing so...

On my Lumia 900, there was a hidden diagnostics app that you could access. One of the most useful things in there was it would tell you the current battery drain, or if connected to a charger, the charging rate. For some reason that doesn't seem to be available anymore on the 920 or 1020 (or AT&T blocked it).

Does anyone know of a way I could check that on the 1020? Unfortunately none of these battery apps seems to have the ability to do that.

Yep, the diagnostocs tool was very helpful on the WP7 devices, unfortunately there is no such thing on WP8. About a month ago I managed to put my hands on a Lumia 925 prototype. Under "Settings" there was a diagnostics menu - muuuch more powerful than the WP7 tool with a lot more info....

+1
I agree! Best feature of Battery is the notification when the phone is done charging so you can pull it off the charger (for those of us who like do such things). I have no reason to try this new battery app since it doesn't do that.

That's not to say Battery by Enless is the "BEST", but I like that feature. Until "Live" tiles can update faster than every 30 minutes, I think a lot of apps that are supposed to give you status information will be seen as sub-par :( (Come on MS, these are more like Once In A While Tiles than Live Tiles!)
I don't even notice that it has ads, so that doesn't matter to me. (After reading Eas195's comment, I had to actually go into the app to see that it did have ads... I honestly don't notice them at all).

And he has Level Meter Pro+ powered by Nokia AND Egg timer Pro+ AND Find Me Pro+ both powered by Nokia too. I bet these apps or dev has NOTHING to do with Nokia officially. (his contact email is @nokia-services.pl btw)

Mine does detect the value correctly. 2000 mAh is the static initial value, if it can't detect the actual battery capacity correctly.
Wait a minute, you have 8X, right? I'm afraid if HTC uses different method to detect its battery status... or, it's just my thought.

Chris. Nice app, just downloaded pro version. Just one request: can you correct the date format to dd/mm/yy? only the Americans use mm/dd/yy. I'm sure this must be able to tie into the phone settings so it changes on how the phone is set up.....

Same here. I'm hoping 8.1 will open more APIs for developers to pull that info. Loved GSM Battery Monitor on Android. Though the nature of Android pretty much requires you to baby sit it looking for rogue apps.

This app is nothing about Nokia. It is developed by "wunderman polska", which is a network of advertising, marketing and consulting companies. And almost all apps under this developer has "powered by Nokia" sign.
I will trust the partnership only if Nokia put its apps in Nokia Collection.

They're all the same. I would instead like to know battery power to the minute the way it should be. Say like the percentage in the battery symbol on the actual phone...like all other phones...I'd also like a notification centre. These things seem so basic!

Pretty bare bones boring battery widget that doesn't display battery Mah other than 2000. Now if you search for a battery app called insider, now that is one beautifully detailed app, with very useful info. That deserves a review on here.

Wow...so I installed the Battery Performance app and it actually drained my battery while charging! Left it plugged in and went from 21% to 8% in a little over an hour. Uninstalled the app and went from 8% to 12% in less than 10 min. There goes $2 out the window.

It bugs me that we need to download apps like this, surely this type of app should be preloaded on windows straight out of the box. Nokia clearly thinks so or it wouldn't be paying someone to fill in the gaps that Microsoft has overlooked!

The guy in the picture has 84 HOURS remaining on his battery?? WTF? I'd love to have my battery last that long... But I presume on the phone this pic was taken on, he has not apps installed and nothing running in the background?